Sunday, October 23, 2005

Straight from the Heart!!!


This week the highlight of life was my interaction with my companys HR people. I work in a company where everyone knows or seems to know everything except me:( yeah you guessed it, its a small company which behaves like a modern joint family.One gets all the freedom to work or not to work. But lately I was getting big time bored with my routine like goto gym, goto office, work and come back from work then try to make your evening happening. And in office I will get mild fever if I someday try/wanna stay after six!!! So I thought enough is enough someday somebody has to do something for me since I unlike others don't know everyone everything, so once fine day I decided to pass one sarcastic comments to my HR personal straight from the heart. and a message popped up in window which made me rub my eyes since I was unable to believe it. I saw a new life and energy filled inside me. Now till I am here in this company I can do something my nice hours spent everyday five days a week in company!!
Wow what a great HR department I have, they rock!!!!
But in general Some human resources (HR) departments (sometimes called personnel or a current new name) really add value to a company.Some don't. That's no surprise. But what sets apart the good ones from the bad ones? Here's one way of looking at it.Some human resource departments have maintained an old command and control mentality, where they see their jobs as making sure managers and employees are doing what they are supposed to. Is everyone on time? Why not? What about sick leave? Are all the rules being followed? It's not that these departments are misguided, because some rules, ARE important and need to be handled centrally by a company. Problems arise, however, when the HR departments forgets that it's purpose is to find the needs of the company, the managers and the employees, to help THEM get the work done and life moving in office hours.
What sets apart good HR departments from bad is that the bad ones lose their service orientation, and forget that if they don't help others get their jobs done, they won't get cooperation from those they should be helping. The good ones recognize that while they are obligated to do some regulation of some processes, that they can play important leadership roles in the organization. And that does NOT mean dictating but balancing off the needs of the organization with the needs of the managers and employees.A personal interaction with employees help a lot in achieving the goal!!!
What would this look like? Let's take an example: performance appraisal. No my appraisal is later so relax junta!!! Yeah so I was saying Poor HR departments go about performance appraisal this way. They devise a set of rules and forms on their own, then go forth (if they have executive support) and TELL managers and employees what they SHALL do. They tend not to consult, or if they consult just forget to listen to the people who have to use these monstrous procedures. What happens is that since HR tends to be somewhat distant from the users of the system, the process misses. Managers and employees see the process as another hoop to jump through, and stall, or avoid doing what they are supposed to.
The good HR department goes about it differently. While they recognize that performance appraisal needs to be, in some respects, a central organization process, they also recognize that if the process isn't responsive to at least some needs of managers and employees, it will never succeed. So rather than dictating the procedures, the smart HR folks create (in consultation with both managers and employees), a skeleton outline of the process. This skeleton outlines the basic components, but leave the details to the managers. So rather than telling managers they much use the twelve page form provided, they simply say that managers must document the performance discussions, and forward them to HR at least annually. See the difference?
Well but in the end all this is crap personally I am happy to have a hope of getting things like a discussion forum, recreation room, tt table , comics and magazine. I have already started day dreaming for forming a football team and beating my friends company. ah time to rub my eyes again!!!! And junta pls speak/crib to HR people they are nice people who can make your life easy in office!!!

1 comment:

Susu said...

doode.. keep place for me in the football team.. I am considering to come back to bangalore for work...